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Ansett staff entitlements 'covered'. .AAP. .27feb02
TRANSPORT Minister John Anderson said employees who lost their jobs from the latest collapse of Ansett would be covered by the government guarantee for workers entitlements.
"Ansett employees who lose their jobs will be covered by the Special Employee Entitlements Scheme, which guarantees payments equal to their statutory entitlements and redundancy payments up to the community standard of eight weeks," Mr Anderson said in a statement.
Melbourne businessmen Lindsay Fox and Solomon Lew today confirmed they had pulled out of negotiations to buy Ansett, blaming issues principally related to third parties.
Mr Anderson said he was saddened by news that the deal had fallen over but noted that negotiations had related to commercial rather than regulatory issues.
"Nevertheless, I have been in close contact with the participants during this time," he said.
Mr Anderson said the government was holding urgent discussions with the Ansett administrators.
"I expect that the administrators will make a further announcement today about the future of the airline," he said.
"I recognise the concerns that must be felt by Ansett's employees and I am hopeful that the administrators will be able to start negotiations with another bidder as a matter of urgency.
"I call on all of the parties involved, and particularly the union movement, not to act as spoilers in any fresh negotiations."
ACTU secretary Greg Combet today said unions had done all they could to save Ansett.
"We've invested an enormous amount of time, energy and money, and so have many other parties," he told ABC radio.
"Everyone has worked extremely hard to try to pull this off."
Mr Anderson said the federal government had done everything in its power to support the Ansett administrators and facilitate the the bid by the Fox-Lew Tesna syndicate.
So far the government had paid $142.5 million to cover the entitlement of 6,747 workers.
A spokesman for Mr Anderson said it was hard to estimate how much extra it would cost the government to cover the additional entitlements.
"All we can say is it will cost a fair bit more than that," he said.